Colorado launches aerial detection to protect people, water in wildfire season

CENTENNIAL — Colorado is embarking on a new aerial strategy to detect and snuff wildfires while they are small — the state's latest attempt to reduce danger to people and destruction of watersheds.

Flanked by lawmakers and emergency responders in an airport hangar, Gov. John Hickenlooper signed three bills into law, including one devoting $20 milllion to line up two firefighting airplanes and four helicopters.

The planes are to be packed with instruments and positioned near hot, dry areas where fire risk is greatest in order to spot wildfires as they first break out and to map terrain. The choppers would drop water on flames.

"Getting to these fires early makes all the difference in the world," Hickenlooper said.

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But rather than firefighting acumen, it is the weather — in the form of a heavy snowpack — that has state officials hoping for and federal forecasters predicting a less-than-calamitous summer. Only southwestern Colorado, bypassed by weekend snow, remains parched, with significant wildfire potential.

The likelihood of wildfires "really depends on what happens with moisture during the summer," said Paul Cooke, director of Colorado's Division of Fire Prevention and Control. "You'll get the spring green-up, and then it will dry out and become the light fuels that are easy to ignite in the late summer months."

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The other bills Hickenlooper signed give a state board power to loan money for community forest-thinning projects and clarify permitting for prescribed fires, which can help restore balance in thick, fire-prone forests.

"We're spending a lot of money. We are going to get results," Hickenlooper said in an interview.

State authorities analyzed the ruinous Waldo Canyon, Black Forest and High Park wildfires that destroyed hundreds of homes, Hickenlooper said.

"We think, if we'd had this equipment, those three would not have been big fires," he said.

The idea is to scan forests near people for hot spots using state-contracted aircraft and relay data quickly to federal agencies that control heavy tankers, which can drop water and fire-retardant slurry on and around wildfires. Colorado officials have been working with U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and military officials to hone protocols for deploying federal tankers within hours after potentially harmful wildfires are detected.

Hickenlooper emphasized a need to improve forest health because forests are the source of water for cities and agriculture.

Federal firefighting crews will focus on the interface areas where people are living near forests, said Forest Service deputy regional director Brian Ferebee.

"Anytime you can detect wildfire early, the better off we are. It helps us to make decisions quickly, effectively and efficiently," Ferebee said. "Whether it be bringing aviation assets or putting ground resources out there, it just puts us in a much better position to keep the fire at a size that we want to keep it at."

Reducing wildfire dangers has emerged as a growing challenge, with an estimated 556,000 houses built in burn zones around Colorado and with rising demand for water to sustain more people and industries.

A Colorado State University study has projected that development will cover 2.1 million acres in wildfire-prone forests by 2030 — up from 1 million acres today. And wildfires have been burning more — around 900,000 acres a year after 2000, compared with 200,000 acres a year in the 1990s, federal data show.

"Local governments are taking a more active role. You don't see them considering new developments anymore without considering the wildland-urban interface issue," said Cooke, the state's top wildfire official. "The big things are that we need to make sure we continue to build with buffer zones around communities, with at least two ways in and out of an area, and a water supply."

A task force last year favored setting state standards for using non-flammable building materials and assigning wildfire risk ratings to homes. State lawmakers said they faced pushback from developers.

"Until we get some kind of managed development in the wildland-urban interface, we're only going to continue to put firefighters at risk" defending homes, said state Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village.

Lawmakers "didn't do anything" on key challenges this year, Schwartz said. "How many years have we been talking about it? The water for the entire Front Range is dependent on forest management in those watersheds."

Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, said "there's definitely a rise in known risk" from wildfires.

"We're building in places where we haven't built before," where both wildfires and floods pose threats, she said. The push for early detection "is an important piece. I don't think it is the total piece."